'My Week with Marilyn' (UK)

***1/2 (out of four) Place your Oscar bets now. Prime awards-season fodder and good enough to justify the attention (in other words: better than "The King's Speech"), "My Week with Marilyn" tells the lively, real-life tale of a young production assistant (Eddie Redmayne) and the brief time he spent swept up in Marilyn Monroe's (Michelle Williams) complicated glow as she filmed a movie ("The Prince and the Showgirl") with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1956. Was Monroe a fragile beauty whose looks exceeded her talent, or was she a savvy manipulator who sometimes paid the price for knowing how to be just what people wanted her to be? Or both? "Marilyn" delightfully, intelligently captures the legend as a question mark in real life, and an exclamation point on the screen. See it: 7 p.m. Oct. 12 (with director Simon Curtis and writer Adrian Hodges in attendance)

***1/2 (out of four) Place your Oscar bets now. Prime awards-season fodder and good enough to justify the attention (in other words: better than "The King's Speech"), "My Week with Marilyn" tells the lively, real-life tale of a young production assistant (Eddie Redmayne) and the brief time he spent swept up in Marilyn Monroe's (Michelle Williams) complicated glow as she filmed a movie ("The Prince and the Showgirl") with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1956. Was Monroe a fragile beauty whose looks exceeded her talent, or was she a savvy manipulator who sometimes paid the price for knowing how to be just what people wanted her to be? Or both? "Marilyn" delightfully, intelligently captures the legend as a question mark in real life, and an exclamation point on the screen. See it: 7 p.m. Oct. 12 (with director Simon Curtis and writer Adrian Hodges in attendance)

***1/2 (out of four) Place your Oscar bets now. Prime awards-season fodder and good enough to justify the attention (in other words: better than "The King's Speech"), "My Week with Marilyn" tells the lively, real-life tale of a young production assistant (Eddie Redmayne) and the brief time he spent swept up in Marilyn Monroe's (Michelle Williams) complicated glow as she filmed a movie ("The Prince and the Showgirl") with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1956. Was Monroe a fragile beauty whose looks exceeded her talent, or was she a savvy manipulator who sometimes paid the price for knowing how to be just what people wanted her to be? Or both? "Marilyn" delightfully, intelligently captures the legend as a question mark in real life, and an exclamation point on the screen. See it: 7 p.m. Oct. 12 (with director Simon Curtis and writer Adrian Hodges in attendance)